My own personal boycott of the airline industry appears to have worked. Those nasty, useless and costly naked-image scanners are a thing of the past -- at least for now.
The company, which Stephen Colbert has noted is coincidentally called Rapiscan, could not come up with less revealing software in the time Congress had allotted. Hysterically, the company denies that the contract was cancelled due to a TSA probe of whether the company had faked testing data. For that matter, they deny that the scanners were dangerous or invasive. But they did make buckets of money.
And according to the TSA, these radioactive strip-searches were effective, because they "did their job of screening 130 million passengers." I suppose that would be an accurate assessment, that is if your goal is to screen a lot of passengers. My impression was the goal was to find terrorists, which by the way they did not.
Meanwhile, back at the airport, if you are willing to give lots of personal information to the Precheck Program, the TSA will let you go through lines faster, like without having to remove your belts and shoes. Well worth the trade-off, I think, especially if you are a terrorist who doesn't mind telling a lie or two about your personal life to be able to get comfortable before the flight.
And, since I haven't been inside an airport in a couple of years except to pick up a loved one with no sense of personal dignity or willingness to make sacrifices for our freedom, I can only assume nothing else much has changed.
The airlines still have fewer people at check-in because automation may not be safer, but it's certainly cheaper.
Luggage is still going to get carried on and jammed in small spaces at everyone's inconvenience because the airlines need that $25 per bag. And then, because the planes keep getting smaller, they will let people check bags at boarding, screwing the people who were honest and sensible enough to pay $25 to store their bag in the first place.
And, I know this makes no sense, but it takes lots more stops to get just about anywhere, and longer to get off those teensy-tiny planes as everyone has to wait for the people in front of them to pull those big bags out of those overhead compartments, so it's far more likely that connections will be missed. But if you're willing to pay full fare, you're likely to get one of those seats that someone is running to catch, because airlines are able to sell a ticket that's already paid for, even if they know the connecting flight has just landed.
And now I'm feeling a bit more pissed off, and the sound of that damned TSA announcement that repeats itself every three minutes is really getting to me, and I'm trying to find someone from the airline that can tell me why my flight isn't being posted anymore, even though it's scheduled to depart in 15 minutes, and...
Well, I'm glad my boycott worked, but I think I'll wait a bit before I book my next flight.
Showing posts with label Airlines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Airlines. Show all posts
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Air Disaster
If you've traveled by air within the past year, and gotten where you were going on time, congratulations. The likelihood of that happening is getting less likely by the day. And the greater the number of delays, the less likely you are to get an explanation for why your life has just been thrown out of whack. So let me just jump to a few conclusions....
Flights diverted to "nearby" airports during inclement weather -- Planes are not being gassed up to capacity anymore, in order to save some bucks flying with a lighter gas tank. Yes, I believe that back in the day we saw far fewer instances of planes having to land at another airport and wait out a storm -- or wait in line to refuel. Don't get me wrong; I am not advocating flying around in circles on fumes waiting for the storm to pass. Just start off with a full tank, the way I do when I'm making a long trip.
Cancelled flights -- Don't have enough passengers to make a big enough profit? Just cancel the whole thing, and squeeze people in elsewhere. These days, you can get passengers to wait for hours for a flight anyway; why not just put them on a later half-full flight?
The other neat reason for cancelling a flight is that the aircraft is having mechanical problems. Maybe the problems were noted as the plane arrived on a wing and a prayer, or it may be that the plane just didn't pass the pre-flight inspection. Our friends on the right-wing side of the political aisle (no pun intended) might think that the problem is too many regulations. Myself, I'd prefer the airlines just keep their planes in top condition. Is that too much to expect from companies that take hundreds of dollars for a couple-hour use of a seat in the air?
Waiting for take-off -- Remember it wasn't so long ago when the media reported with horror people being forced to remain in an airplane for hours waiting to take off? Well, now it's just business as usual. Sitting on a runway for over an hour? Consider yourself lucky if every 15 minutes or so the pilot gets on the intercom and tells you what number you are in line.
Back in the day when people were paid what they were worth to do such an incredibly important job as fly planes, or manage flights, or keep airplanes in top condition, we could expect the planes to run on time. But here in 2012, it's okay for the CEO to whine about profits, and then, in the name of same, cut costs to the edge of disaster. In the case of big containers of people many thousands of feet in the air, the edge of disaster is a very real and frightening consideration. So it is regulations, of all things, that prevent planes daily crashing. But they don't make the planes safe, they just keep the ones that are not safe on the ground. And regulations don't make airports run efficiently; in fact, by preventing dangerous planes from taking off, regulations increase delays. Or at least provide a good excuse for the airline industry when explaining why hundreds of people can no longer plan on starting a vacation, attending a conference, or even making a connecting flight (that the airlines scheduled).
What to do about this? I believe the solution is to let the federal government take over the airlines. No more for-profit. No more boards to keep happy with inflated stock prices. And then vote people in that will fund the airlines, and the necessary employees. Basically, exactly what they need to do with Amtrak. Which, by the way, now has an on-time record that beats the airlines.
Flights diverted to "nearby" airports during inclement weather -- Planes are not being gassed up to capacity anymore, in order to save some bucks flying with a lighter gas tank. Yes, I believe that back in the day we saw far fewer instances of planes having to land at another airport and wait out a storm -- or wait in line to refuel. Don't get me wrong; I am not advocating flying around in circles on fumes waiting for the storm to pass. Just start off with a full tank, the way I do when I'm making a long trip.
Cancelled flights -- Don't have enough passengers to make a big enough profit? Just cancel the whole thing, and squeeze people in elsewhere. These days, you can get passengers to wait for hours for a flight anyway; why not just put them on a later half-full flight?
The other neat reason for cancelling a flight is that the aircraft is having mechanical problems. Maybe the problems were noted as the plane arrived on a wing and a prayer, or it may be that the plane just didn't pass the pre-flight inspection. Our friends on the right-wing side of the political aisle (no pun intended) might think that the problem is too many regulations. Myself, I'd prefer the airlines just keep their planes in top condition. Is that too much to expect from companies that take hundreds of dollars for a couple-hour use of a seat in the air?
Waiting for take-off -- Remember it wasn't so long ago when the media reported with horror people being forced to remain in an airplane for hours waiting to take off? Well, now it's just business as usual. Sitting on a runway for over an hour? Consider yourself lucky if every 15 minutes or so the pilot gets on the intercom and tells you what number you are in line.
Back in the day when people were paid what they were worth to do such an incredibly important job as fly planes, or manage flights, or keep airplanes in top condition, we could expect the planes to run on time. But here in 2012, it's okay for the CEO to whine about profits, and then, in the name of same, cut costs to the edge of disaster. In the case of big containers of people many thousands of feet in the air, the edge of disaster is a very real and frightening consideration. So it is regulations, of all things, that prevent planes daily crashing. But they don't make the planes safe, they just keep the ones that are not safe on the ground. And regulations don't make airports run efficiently; in fact, by preventing dangerous planes from taking off, regulations increase delays. Or at least provide a good excuse for the airline industry when explaining why hundreds of people can no longer plan on starting a vacation, attending a conference, or even making a connecting flight (that the airlines scheduled).
What to do about this? I believe the solution is to let the federal government take over the airlines. No more for-profit. No more boards to keep happy with inflated stock prices. And then vote people in that will fund the airlines, and the necessary employees. Basically, exactly what they need to do with Amtrak. Which, by the way, now has an on-time record that beats the airlines.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Choosing to Pay
It occurred to me, as I was listening to the ongoing harangue by America's politicians, that this is an absurd debate that we are having.
We are able to keep taxes low by voting out of office anyone who suggests we might need to pay more for government services.
We don't get to vote for price increases for anything else. Would you agree to pay more for, say, homeowner's insurance? (The ever popular dumping ground of South Carolina was chosen to have a rate increase this year, my policy increasing by 18%!) How about airfares -- how would you vote on doubling fares on the Sunday after Thanksgiving? And don't forget the cost of food; would raising food costs get your vote?
Yet the service that has always given the most bang for the buck continues to get squeezed, to the point of failure. Take schools, or the postal service. And my own personal favorite, public libraries.
Why do we continue to think that we should get to vote down the cost of government services, while paying top dollar for everything else?
Let's take a look at this fallacy, and let's figure out a way to give it the fresh air it needs.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Responsibility Ends Where Profits Begin
This is the problem with government. They take on responsibility for big business. Stop complaining (you know who I'm talking to) about how the government takes care of us. The government has left us to hang while it takes care of big business, because big business has convinced government that we can't let it fail. Not that it's too big, which it is, but that it's too important. Apple pie and all that. Except, instead of saying government is taking care of big business, they say they are helping small businesses.
What I'm really here to talk about today is the airline industry. I'm sick to death of hearing what all the problem is with the TSA. The TSA needs to hand the reigns over to the airlines to take care of their own damned security. They need to be responsible for screwing up who gets on a plane, not the government. Because when paying customers get on a plane, the airlines don't give an extra dime to the government for the security.
That's how the government is dumber than the Mafia. When the Mafia gives you protection, you pay for it.
You have probably noticed that, as the TSA took over airline security, the airlines went all gangbusters over cutting personnel at the check-ins. Just when you might think they would be required to be on guard for "suspicious characters", or at least be there to check to make sure their ID's matched their boarding passes (and that they had boarding passes), they were now insisting that we all use "self-check-in". Common sense would have it, in the stupid age, when you need to submit to having your purse poked to get into a concert, there would at least be airline personnel at essential checkpoints to keep an eye out for "suspicious characters". You know, instead of the irritating recorded message that instructs us, at no additional cost to the airlines, to report suspicious persons...
...not to the airlines, but to the TSA. Because the airlines have washed their hands of this responsibility.
I do hate the TSA. It is government bureaucracy at its finest. But let's all remind ourselves that the government is just doing what we all have come to expect it to do: use our tax dollars to protect big business.
What I'm really here to talk about today is the airline industry. I'm sick to death of hearing what all the problem is with the TSA. The TSA needs to hand the reigns over to the airlines to take care of their own damned security. They need to be responsible for screwing up who gets on a plane, not the government. Because when paying customers get on a plane, the airlines don't give an extra dime to the government for the security.
That's how the government is dumber than the Mafia. When the Mafia gives you protection, you pay for it.
You have probably noticed that, as the TSA took over airline security, the airlines went all gangbusters over cutting personnel at the check-ins. Just when you might think they would be required to be on guard for "suspicious characters", or at least be there to check to make sure their ID's matched their boarding passes (and that they had boarding passes), they were now insisting that we all use "self-check-in". Common sense would have it, in the stupid age, when you need to submit to having your purse poked to get into a concert, there would at least be airline personnel at essential checkpoints to keep an eye out for "suspicious characters". You know, instead of the irritating recorded message that instructs us, at no additional cost to the airlines, to report suspicious persons...
...not to the airlines, but to the TSA. Because the airlines have washed their hands of this responsibility.
I do hate the TSA. It is government bureaucracy at its finest. But let's all remind ourselves that the government is just doing what we all have come to expect it to do: use our tax dollars to protect big business.
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